FARMERS HOPE PEOPLE EAT THEIR VEGGIES

Gerald Mueller says conditions in Southeast Missouri are perfect for growing vegetables.

The weather is right. The soil is right. The rainfall is right. But only a few farmers have bought into the wholesale growing of vegetables.

Bootheel agronomists say the trend may be changing as farmers look for diversification and higher income potential for their land.

Gerald Bryan, agronomist with the University of Missouri Extension, said, "It's definitely going to be a growth area. I've been here eight years and have seem some expansion. There is quite a bit of small scale production for fresh produce already."

The University Extension is forming an advisory committee/task force to address commercial vegetable production in the Bootheel.

"We are ideally situated here with an abundance of water and good soil," Bryan said. "We are looking at developing markets and processing plants in the area."

In the Bootheel, there is a 4,000-acre farm growing potatoes for chips and another 3,000-acre farm growing tomatoes. "There are other speciality crops -- popcorn and pumpkins and watermelons," Bryan said. A number of growers in Southern Illinois also raise vegetable crops.

Bryan said large corporations who deal with vegetables -- Campbells and Gerber -- are looking for new production areas. Pesticide contamination and other problems are closing down some vegetable sources on the West Coast.

"A lot of the companies are looking to areas that are more centrally located," Bryan said. "The Bootheel area, along the interstate highways, is ideal."

Mueller grows sweet corn, cabbage, cantaloupe, squash and turnips by the acres. He works with his brother and nephew in Mueller Farms at Bertrand.

In addition to the vegetable farming, the Muellers operate a retail market, 30 greenhouses, sell lots of bedding plants and vegetable plants for gardeners.

Most of the vegetables are sold to food distributors like Malone and Hyde and Cauble and Field and remain fresh produce. Turnips are sold to Bush Brothers for processing into canned vegetables, he said.

"I raise about 40 acres of cabbage and I am able to get rid of all of that right here," Mueller said.

Bryan said, "I think we will see a lot of growth, at least on a small scale. It offers farmers some diversification. Farmers may grow mostly corn or soybeans, but might grow 50 acres of sweet corn or a couple hundred acres of another crop."

"It has high income potential but also high loss potential," Bryan said.

"The primary thing you run into is you have more diseases. You have to worry about weed control and quality control. If an ear of corn gets a worm in the end, it won't matter. But if you try to sell that ear as fresh produce, not too many people want it. Even if it is going into canned corn, you have to have the same quality."

Mueller said vegetable farming is also labor intensive. "We grew up in the vegetable field," Mueller said. "To me that's the way to farm."

But he said farmers used to traditional row-crop farming are not too enthusiastic about labor-intensive vegetable farming.

"These farmers are used to operating big with big machinery," Mueller said. "When it gets down to a lot of this hand work, they're not too encouraged.

"Everything is here," Mueller said. "It is right for vegetable farming. Maybe people just don't want to work that hard."